How many cups in a pound

Cups are widely used in cooking recipes for a better accurate measure of items (mostly wheat, rice, sugar, flour). This is highly used as a convention unit when measuring instruments are not available. And no such are available in kitchens(unless you buy one to suit you). But for the more common, cups are to be used. Bigger units like pound are sometimes not used directly in cooking as its too huge and a lot. So, what if we were to use the pound in such a condition? And to know, how many cups in a pound?

First, what actually is a cup?

Cup is a convention unit used in cooking, but not exactly a
physically accepted metric level or US unit which is used for other purposes
too.

It is just a convention unit used widely in kitchens to make measuring items easier. 80% recipes just require single cup measures and are completed just 3 times faster. That’s a big plus point.

And what is
a pound?

The pound is a bigger unit of mass(most probably of weight
actually), but less than a kilogram. A pound is actually the mass of 7000
grains (on earth).

This is the simple
meaning of a pound. Don’t confuse it with pound currency which is a totally
different thing and has no relation to weight pound.

One pound equals out
0.453 kilogram, which if reverse calculated gives us 2.2 pounds for a kilogram.
Quite big for the smaller units and quite small for the bigger ones.

Now to find out the answer to our question, we will have to
use an intermediate unit which is both small enough to give the digits in whole
numbers.

As fractions would be a problem. We will use ounces for the
conversion between cups and pounds. The matter/item which will be used as
weight is the normal Us fluid which is common with ounces, cups too.

Ounces are smaller units of masses, nearly much smaller. One
ounce is nearly equal to 28.35 grams. That is small. You might find the answer
why ounces are most probably used during use of spices, salts in cooking.

Well, cups and ounces are well used altogether. The relation between cups and ounces is that one cup is equal to 8 ounces (US fluid being used for the conversion). Now you know the relation between these two.

So, how many cups in a pound? We are near to our answer.

2 cups to
oz

Ounces or oz might be a smaller unit, so it will be needed to
make it a bit more. You are now familiar with weights in between cups and
ounces.

One cup is equal to 8
ounces to be exact. Therefore for the sake of math, 2 cups to oz will be
multiplying 8 by 2, which is equal to 16. Thus, 2 cups to oz will be equal to
16. Or to be clear, 2 cups is equal to 16 ounces.

1 cup to oz. The convention of using 2 cups is common, like 1 cup. Well, we already have been clear about the conversion between cups and ounces. In this case, one cup was equal to 8 ounces. Or directing the answer to our question, 1 cup to oz is equal to 8.

The way we did the conversion here is that we just converted
the first unit to the next unit. The number is the answer which is the
equivalent of the second unit into the first. Hope you did not get confused.

Pounds and
ounces.

Now we come closer to our actual answer. Since we know about
the relation between ounces and cups, once we know about pounds to ounces, the
conversion will be very easy.

And highly accurate too. Now to be clear enough, 16 ounces
count to one cup. Or answering our question here, 1 pound is equal to 16
ounces. Clear enough.

Why a
preferable matter is required for conversion of units?

This is for many reasons. As cups, pounds, ounces are finite and closed quantities, these will be equal for all items. But all of the items that are readily used in and out of the kitchen, don’t have the same molecular/Atomic structure.

Apologies for going into physics, the point is that all items don’t have similar density. Which means they have different weight values for similar volumes, for similar values for different volumes. 100 grams of salt won’t have the same volume for 100 grams of wheat.

This makes unit conversion more complicated as adjusting
these might not be possible. And using such an item would give different values
for cups, pounds. Especially cup has a finite quantity which is the same for
wheat, sugar, rice.

But these will have different weights. So to avoid this kind
of error, a preferable matter is required.

Now to the
final answer to our original question.

We know about cups, ounces, pounds a lot. Now to the
conversion. One cup is exactly equal to 8 ounces. And a pound is equal to 16
ounces.

So, reversing the values we get 8:16 ratio or 1:2 ratio for
the cup: pound in terms of cups. Or simply two cups is equal to 1 pound.